Intermittent Fasting: Benefits & How to Start for a Healthier You - Essay Sample

Introduction

Intermittent Fasting (IF) has been a rapidly growing trend in the nutrition industry in recent years (Valter and Mattson 180). Unlike fasting, intermittent fasting involves timing one's eating patterns, and not restricting consumption of some food types. It consists of eating and fasting in alternating periods, which means setting when a person eats the foods. It can help people to lose weight, ease their life, and enhance their health and wellbeing, among other benefits (Valter and Mattson 180). Once a person chooses their desired achievement, whether weight loss or general health improvement, they may pick any of the intermittent fasting methods. The methods include Eat-Stop-Eat, Warrior diet, Leangains, and Alternate day fasting. This paper discusses the effectiveness of intermittent fasting in improving overall health.

Eat Stop Eat

Proposed by fitness coach Brad Pilon, this method involves fasting for 24 hours once or twice per week. A person can choose to fast from breakfast to breakfast, dinner to dinner, or lunch to lunch. During the fasting time, they can only consume soft drinks and beverages and must avoid solid foods. When eating time comes, the person is advised to eat normally just as they could if they never fasted (Fabian et al. 10). This method may be challenging for many people because avoiding food for 24 hours can be overwhelming, but someone can start from a 15-hour fast and gradually improve to 24 hours.

Warrior Diet

Suggested by Ori Hofmekler, warrior diet involves a person not eating for 20 hours in a day, and eating all their preferred foods during the remaining four hours of the day. So, most people who use this method fast during the day and eat heavily at night (Ghalenoei, Arani, and Kerachian 171). During the 20-hour fast, they only take raw fruits and vegetables.

Leangains 16/8 Method

It involves eating actively for eight to ten hours a day and fasting for the rest of the day-approximately 16 hours. A person is free to take three or even more meals during the eating window. So, a person may choose to skip one meal, either dinner, breakfast, or lunch. Most breakfast skippers are applying this method subconsciously (Brink 11). This method is easy for most people to adapt to because the eating window does not restrict the types of food or the number of meals to take. However, one is advised to focus majorly on healthy food and avoid junk.

Fasting in Human History

Fasting has been part of the human race for long. Christians, Hindus, and Muslims all use fasting as one of the incentives for worshipping (Shubhroz, and Panda 6). In clinical environments, patients can be put on monitored fasting regimes to better their disease handling or weight management (Amazing Wellness Magazine). Biologically speaking, fasting causes adjustments in the body that lead to ketogenesis (fat breakdown) and lipolysis (calory breakdown). The changes lead to the use of body fats to supply energy, thus a general reduction in body fat (Guolin et al. 24). When followed through with discipline, these forms of fasting may help a person with weight reduction, slow aging, and controlling diseases such as arthritis (Maideen, Jumale, and Abdul 163).

Fasting for Weight Loss

Intermittent fasting is about reprogramming the brain to get used to lower calory amounts and to resist the temptations of overeating. The human liver stores glucose in the form of glycogen (Aftab et al. 2703). During fasting or strenuous activity, the blood glucose and liver glycogen reduce, and the body resorts to fat-breakdown as an energy source. The fats get broken down into ketone bodies, which may allow a human being to go up to thirty days without food (Y. Ho et al. 29). Compared to glucose, the use of ketone bodies as the primary metabolite has been shown to reduce aging in mammal cells. It is essential, however, to understand that the body takes these measures as austerity responses (2708). Thus, fasting is not advisable for pregnant and lactating women, people with diabetes, and children.

Fasting also promotes growth hormone (GH) production, which in turn, activates insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-1) (Y. Ho et al. 39). Through IGF-1, GH promotes protein build up in body tissues, which leads to more amino acid breakdown hence reduced protein oxidation. GH also enhances the breakdown of fats by promoting the breakdown of triglycerides and oxidation of lipid cells. This upregulation of fat breakdown is one of the contributors to weight loss during fasting (42).

Intermittent Fasting for Disease Management

As already discussed, fasting causes fat metabolism and hence reduces calories. Similarly, the physiological and biochemical adaptive cellular responses that fasting induces lead to the generation of compounds that fight oxidative stress and inflammation, optimize energy utility and improve cellular protection (Johnson et al. 670). Fasting has thus been seen to play a role in the management and cure of chronic diseases like cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Fasting motivates the stress-fighting pathways in the body, thus helping in managing asthma, arthritis, and hypertension. Therefore, intermittent fasting can be used to compensate for dietary interventions and hence eliminate the effects of nutritional and medical supplements.

By optimizing a person's metabolic profiles, intermittent fasting can also help to prevent other conditions like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (Nicholas 36). Further, it helps to reduce the total body bad cholesterol and triglycerides in overweight, obese, and normal weight people (Krista et al. 140). Fasting also raises the level of adiponectin in the body. The hormone promotes the breakdown of more glucose and fatty acids, thus leading to proper weight management and reduced risk of obesity from insulin resistance (Essam et al. 12). Fasting also reduced the overall body levels of sugar hemoglobin (HbA1c), which causes a proper balance of patients' blood glucose levels (17).

Asthma

Asthma is increasingly becoming a deadly disease in the world. It is a lung ailment that leads to inflamed and narrow airways leading to breathing problems (Nicholas 15). Other symptoms include coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, and short breath. The symptoms get triggered by factors such as infections, flu, allergens like pollen and dust, strong odors such as perfumes, polluted air, cigarette smoke, exercise, climate changes, and emotional stress (Kelsey et al. 347). In 2007, Johnson et al. organized a study to examine the impact of fasting on symptom progression and risk factors accumulation for asthmatic patients. Of the ten subjects, the nine who adhered to the regimen lost 8 percent of their original weight.

The asthma symptoms and pulmonary functions improved notably in two weeks. Blood fatty acid levels increased, showing a shift to fat metabolism in the body. The markers for oxidative stress, such as nitrotyrosine and 8-isoprostane, also reduced significantly while antioxidant uric acid levels increased. The level of markers for inflammation, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor and brain-derived neurotrophic factor also fell. Thus, the intermittent fasting exercise made the symptoms to recede, heart function to improve, and inflammation to reduce (Francoise et al. 2). They concluded that therapeutic fasting could be a creative intervention in the management of asthma. Because asthma is a factor in obesity, IF is thus helpful in obesity management.

Intermittent Fasting to Reverse Diabetes II

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a type of diabetes majorly characterized by a lack of insulin in the body, insulin resistance, or excessive secretion of glucagon hormone, thus high blood sugar levels (Johnstone 730). Its symptoms include frequent urination, increased thirst, and unreasonable weight loss or gain. It is linked to obesity and requires prolonged medical assistance to avoid the dangers it can pose to the cardiovascular and nervous systems. T2D is a big problem in the USA and costs the country $245 billion to handle (Furmli et al. 90.). It has a high mortality rate since most patients cannot afford or cannot access the treatment regimen.

Treatment options for T2D include Bariatric surgery, which is expensive and invasive, surgical reversal, and insulin infusion, which the most used (Nicholas 36). Given the rising cost of insulin, patients only remain with the option of finding ways to reduce their insulin requirements and reliance on it. Intermittent fasting can offer a patient hormonal balance benefits and religious caloric restriction to yield results almost similar to those of bariatric surgery. The advantage of fasting is that it is not invasive, is free, and has no risks (Ferah). In a study by Suleiman et al. in 2018, three patients who had been referred to intensive insulin care in Toronto were introduced to intermittent fasting. After practicing intermittent fasting for 18days, all the patients became completely insulin-independent.

The study offered the first proof that a 24-hour fasting pattern can reduce the insulin requirements of a diabetic patient. Since IF leads to weight loss, caloric restriction plays a significant role in taming symptoms and slowing the progress of complications. The patients also improved their Bony Mass Indices (BMI) and waist circumferences. The efficacy of the therapeutic fasting regimen is reinforced by the fact that fasting reduces the obesity risk factors such as HDL cholesterol and plasma triglycerides, which means a better defense against both diabetes and heart disease (Suleiman et al. 13). However, it is essential to understand that the patients must be guided to keep adherence to the regimen.

Intermittent Fasting for Improved Cognition

Throughout evolution, man has used fasting as a way to enhance their brainpower (Clare 32). During stress, the body responds by shrinking most organs except the brain and testicles, for obvious reasons. The great thinkers and philosophers of history fasted for days on end to sharpen their minds. Japanese prisoners of war also went hungry to become brighter, and they indeed became smarter. Stories are told of prisoners who could learn new languages in weeks, and master mountains of books in their brains, inspired by fasting (Clare 32).

When a person avoids food for prolonged durations, their stomach gets empty, leading to the production of ghrelin hormone by the stomach (Chanyang et al. 3). Ghrelin, also called the hunger hormone, has been shown to promote the formation of new brain cells in a process known as neurogenesis. In the lab, mice injected with ghrelin perform better in cognition and memory tests. New brain cells are known to capture memories better since they get easily activated. Thus, because it improves ghrelin production, intermittent fasting can help to regulate neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's disease (Liaoliao et al. 21). People with dementia usually have low blood ghrelin levels. Ghrelin also offers protection for brain cells from death or permanent damage during stressful situations (30).

The hippocampus is a structure in the temporal lobe of the brain that mediates learning and memory. The formation and growth of cells in the hippocampus is vital for astute memory, learning performance, and emotional responses (Chanyang et al. 9). Ghrelin has been shown to have an impact on boosting neurogenesis in the hippocampus. The fist actions step of ghrelin is that it induces the proliferation of neuronal precursor cells. By also causing the production of growth factors like the insulin-like growth factor, it leads to the growth, better survival, and specialization if hippocampal neurons. Together with its effects on stimulating synaptic flexibility, it leads to better cognitive function, memory, and stress...